STUCK IN rush-hour traffic? Kept awake by teenagers drag-racing down Main Street? Fender dented by a careless driver at the mall? In Verdicts on Lawyers, a 1976 volume edited by Ralph Nader and Mark Green, an ultimate if drastic answer to these familiar car-related woes was proposed: file a lawsuit—not against your fellow drivers, but against Detroit (and, these days, Yokohama) for not designing automobiles that would prevent these ills.